What is your opinion on forgiveness, do you have to forgive absolutely everything? I know some people forgive because they don’t want to be destroyed by the hate. I’ve never experienced anything unforgivable, though for years I struggled with the notion I had suffered a grave injustice. I have felt insignificant and bolstered my ego which made me think I was cheated out of my best good…if you know what I mean… my self importance made me resentful
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No. However, one has to learn to leave some things at home in the closet and not carry them around with you everywhere, all the time. It becomes too much.
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It’s possible to forgive ppl but still think they are dirt.
The way I see it is, I don’t tolerate what they may be doing, but I can’t control them so I forgive them in the most basic sense, ie let them be. But create a distance for my own protection.
I do loving kindness mindfulness.
But ppl who are unloving, the way I see it, they may not be receptive to that.
And it’s exhausting to do loving kindness for meditation for serial repeat offenders.
Sometimes you have to just not care. For your own protection. I’m not a fan of that as it feels cold, but sometimes it’s the only choice.
And let other things deal with them.
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The people I held grudges against, they were my versions of them in my mind. the actual people have no awareness of this, they are far away somewhere living their lives. if you forgive someone do it for closure and your peace of mind, not for them. forgiving was good for my ocd
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In my opinion you should never forgive people who don’t show a desire not to commit the act again. If people have that desire you should forgive them everytime, it doesn’t matter if they wrong you 7 times in the same day, if they are repenting you should rebuke them 7 times and forgive them 7 times. But if they only want the fruits of forgiveness but distance themselves from the tree because they are too proud and even go so far as to judge your rebuking, only welcoming your compassion and mercy, then forgiveness is plain weakness and outright evil.
It is not enough to forgive 7 times those who repent 7 times, it is every bit as necessary to rebuke 7 times those who do you wrong 7 times. If you stop rebuking the act you aren’t forgiving anything, you are just washing your hands of an issue, letting it fester or heal on its own to save yourself the heartache.
That’s something that’s only acceptable if you need to do it lest you strain yourself so much that you’d break. If you do it for a peace of mind and harmony that you want but do not actually Need, with a capital N, then your forgiveness not only is wrong and void but part of the burden of the wrongful act you are forgiving shall then be counted onto you.
That’s how I see forgiveness. You tell me “I was wrong, please forgive me” and I will give you ways to help yourself not doing it again, if you show patience and willingness to listen and interest in what I’m saying to rebuke your act, I’ll forgive you.
You tell me “please forgive me” and I will drill you, if you’ll take the drilling lying down I’ll forgive you, but if you’ll resist I will turn my back on you until the day you ask forgiveness for your resistance or bless my harshness.
You tell me “I was wrong” and I will embrace you. If when I break my hug I see you seeking my approval or avoiding my gaze, I will forgive you. If you take my forgiveness for granted, I will instead reprimand your act after the hug is broken, dragging you back into repentance to see if it sticks, so that you’ll know that in no way my compassion is condoning your act, if it sticks I will forgive you, if the repentance is already nowhere to be found I will rebuke your shallow resolution.
The master said forgive not 7 times but 70×7
Polite disagreement. I feel no compulsion to forgive those who repeatedly injure me. They are removed from my life and never allowed to return no matter if they correct their ways or not. Lots of other people out there, most of whom have not hurt me. They get my energy.
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Forgiveness is for you not them. When you forgive someone it is the act of letting that resentment or negative feeling go. It may not completely go away, but at least you can work on it. It doesn’t mean you have to forgive everything done to you. But it doesn’t help to ruminate or hold on to something that is affecting you negatively especially when the other person doesn’t feel bad about it or even know you feel wronged. Forgiveness sometimes can be rooted or made through understanding. When you understand something it’s easier to deal with.
The people who have asked me to forgive them seem to feel it is important to them. In my case I can separate resentment and forgiveness reasonably well.
Itd be important to me to get forgiveness from someone I feel I need it from. When my sister was doing her 12 steps she wanted my forgiveness for things. I wasn’t really bothered by any of the things she did or I had already gotten over them. It was nice to know that she wanted it though. So I guess forgiveness can be for other people, but if it’s easy to do for someone it didn’t need to be forgiven. But I agree forgiveness can be for the offender as well.
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I don’t know what I see the most in my life is my brother-in-law cheated on my sister in their marriage. She never forgave him nor her daughters and they completely kicked him out of their life. It’s their choice and I respect it.
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I forgive lots of things, but sexual abuse? No. Hurting my wife or kid? Never.
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I always forgive people its part of my faith. I would want others to forgive me too
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there are some things I don’t forgive some ppl in my family and friends…don’t think about it but once in a while…the hate stays there…but rightly so…I try to forgive most of all that happened to me.
Yeah I think forgiveness is really important. An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind or so they say
Neither do you feel the need to rebuke them apparently. My life isn’t about me, it’s about us. I suffer when somebody wrongs me not so much for myself, I am not a child, but because of their existence in the world. I see it as my duty if they want that part of them to no longer be a source of suffering for themselves and others to help them if I can however I can to the extent that they let me.
Helping those who do me wrong and want to change in changing is to me as much a duty as giving food to a person starving in front of me. People don’t take up negative traits that they want to remove out of being despicable, they most often did so out of love for someone else who had them, most often in the innocence of childhood.
If I can help them overcome those burdens I am happy to do so, just like I am happy to drag somebody drowning to shore even though they are a danger to me as they end up dragging me down in an attempt to gasp for air. I don’t forgive people to give them nor me peace of mind. My forgiveness is twice as heavy as my non-forgiveness. When I forgive somebody I don’t lose a weight, I gain one. I make you and your change my responsibility because you told me you want to change as I wanted you to.
What kind of man doesn’t help somebody achieve the change they want to see of them if they are given the chance and know how?
If you’ve already changed, you don’t need my forgiveness, you merely need to atone because you want my goodwill and who am I to deny you a chance to serve me? If that’s what you want, you will serve me or those I send you to until you are satisfied of what your own atonement has bought you of my good will.
People generally are far from willing to humble themselves enough to achieve either. The best they settle for is my acceptance of them and my reprieve for a chance to earn my absolution without going through my forgiveness and without trying to earn any goodwill from me, basically going, if they are lucky, from enemies to strangers or acquaintances at best because they are too proud to ever strive for my friendship and love, and so they never get to know me, thinking they earned back my trust when all they bought themselves is my tolerance, my indifference and my forgetfulness.
The kind who was held down by a parent as a small child so her boyfriend could rape him. Again. That is what you’re asking me to forgive. I’m not. Take your advice elsewhere in this instance. In other news, she’s dead and beyond help, but then again, she always was.
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You are reading my words improperly. First of all that better be a case that falls under atonement and not forgiveness from the words I spoke, the idea that they need your help to no longer go around raping kids is preposterous and that’s what asking for forgiveness in that regard would mean to me, not a clean slate, forgiveness is never a clean slate for me. It’s but the willingness to work with them on changing them, here they better have changed on their own already.
Second, I believe in personal authority when it comes to forgiveness, if you aren’t willing to forgive nobody has a right to urge you to forgive, myself included.
Third, in my book the fact that you haven’t killed them is more than enough forgiveness, the fact that they had the gall to make themselves known to you, or somebody else did in their place, in order to ask for your forgiveness is beyond despicable and they should atone for that as well. They should merely have atoned the rest of their lives as unknown to you as humanly possible, hoping to have conformed to your will enough for your forgiveness after your deaths and not burdening you with their selfish requests as you still breathe.
Fourth, as I’ve said this falls under atonement in my book and not forgiveness, and that means they need to serve you indefinitely earning whatever scraps they can of your goodwill. In this case, the only way they have to serve you is clearly to be dead to you and working to do your will with you none the wiser, which means they can only work for a goodwill never to be seen from you in life. You donate to a charity, they should rejoice, sell their house and donate the earnings to that charity. You don’t think they should have comforts, they should eat the simplest of meals everyday, sleeping on the floor just to show to God their willingness to subordinate themselves to your will without judgment or care for themselves.
That’s what I am advocating in that case. They can’t put a weight on the one they are asking forgiveness from in order to free themselves of it, that’s not how redemption works and I repeat, this should never fall under forgiveness in my book and they should never have even entertained the idea of receiving a pardon from you in life.
I feel I am reading them properly, but that you chose them improperly. Impasse.
Yes, it is, and that is what you foisted forgiveness off as.
Oh, I’m willing to help them change. From living to deceased.
There is no possible way to ever earn my goodwill for certain acts.
Forgive and forget I say
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